Complete Works of Joseph Conrad (Illustrated) (603 page)

On the after-deck Michel was keeping a lookout. He had carried out the orders he had received by the well. Besides being secured by the very obvious padlock, the cabin door was shored up by a spar which made it stand as firm as a rock. The thundering noise seemed to issue from its immovable substance magically. It ceased for a moment, and a sort of distracted continuous growling could be heard. Then the thundering began again. Michel reported: ``This is the third time he starts this game.’’

``Not much strength in this,’’ remarked Peyrol gravely.

``That he can do it at all is a miracle,’’ said Michel, showing a certain excitement. ``He stands on the ladder and beats the door with his fists. He is getting better. He began about half an hour after I got back on board. He drummed for a bit and then fell off the ladder. I heard him. I had my ear against the scuttle. He lay there and talked to himself for a long time. Then he went at it again.’’ Peyrol approached the scuttle while Michel added his opinion: ``He will go on like that for ever. You can’t stop him.’’

``Easy there,’’ said Peyrol in a deep authoritative voice. ``Time you finish that noise.’’

These words brought instantly a death-like silence. Michel ceased to grin. He wondered at the power of these few words of a foreign language.

Peyrol himself smiled faintly. It was ages since he had uttered a sentence of English. He waited complacently until Michel had unbarred and unlocked the door of the cabin. After it was thrown open he boomed out a warning: ``Stand clear!’’ and, turning about, went down with great deliberation, ordering Michel to go forward and keep a lookout.

Down there the man with the bandaged head was hanging on to the table and swearing feebly without intermission. Peyrol, after listening for a time with an air of interested recognition as one would to a tune heard many years ago, stopped it by a deep-voiced:

``That will do.’’ After a short silence he added: ``You look bien malade, hein? What you call sick,’’ in a tone which if not tender was certainly not hostile. ``We will remedy that.’’

``Who are you?’’ asked the prisoner, looking frightened and throwing his arm up quickly to guard his head against the coming blow. But Peyrol’s uplifted hand fell only on his shoulder in a hearty slap which made him sit down suddenly on a locker in a partly collapsed attitude and unable to speak. But though very much dazed he was able to watch Peyrol open a cupboard and produce from there a small demijohn and two tin cups. He took heart to say plaintively: ``My throat’s like tinder,’’ and then suspiciously: ``Was it you who broke my head?’’

``It was me,’’ admitted Peyrol, sitting down on the opposite side of the table and leaning back to look at his prisoner comfortably.

``What the devil did you do that for?’’ inquired the other with a sort of faint fierceness which left Peyrol unmoved.

``Because you put your nose where you no business. Understand? I see you there under the moon, pench, eating my tartane with your eyes. You never hear me, hein?’’

``I believe you walked on air. Did you mean to kill me?’’

``Yes, in preference to letting you go and make a story of it on board your cursed corvette.’’

``Well then, now’s your chance to finish me. I am as weak as a kitten.’’

``How did you say that? Kitten? Ha, ha, ha!’’ laughed Peyrol. ``You make a nice petit chat.’’ He seized the demijohn by the neck and filled the mugs. ``There,’’ he went on, pushing one towards the prisoner — -``it’s good drink — -that.’’

Symons’ state was as though the blow had robbed him of all power of resistance, of all faculty of surprise and generally of all the means by which a man may assert himself except bitter resentment. His head was aching, it seemed to him enormous, too heavy for his neck and as if full of hot smoke. He took a drink under Peyrol’s fixed gaze and with uncertain movements put down the mug. He looked drowsy for a moment. Presently a little colour deepened his bronze; he hitched himself up on the locker and said in a strong voice:

``You played a damned dirty trick on me. Call yourself a man, walking on air behind a fellow’s back and felling him like a bullock?’’

Peyrol nodded calmly and sipped from his mug.

``If I had met you anywhere else but looking at my tartane I would have done nothing to you. I would have permitted you to go back to your boat. Where was your damned boat?’’

``How can I tell you? I can’t tell where I am. I’ve never been here before. How long have I been here?’’

``Oh, about fourteen hours,’’ said Peyrol.

``My head feels as if it would fall off if I moved,’’ grumbled the other. . . . ``You are a damned bungler, that’s what you are.’’

``What for — -bungler?’’

``For not finishing me off at once.’’

He seized the mug and emptied it down his throat. Peyrol drank too, observing him all the time. He put the mug down with extreme gentleness and said slowly:

``How could I know it was you? I hit hard enough to crack the skull of any other man.’’

``What do you mean? What do you know about my skull? What are you driving at? I don’t know you, you white-headed villain, going about at night knocking people on the head from behind. Did you do for our officer, too?’’

``Oh yes! Your officer. What was he up to? What trouble did you people come to make here, anyhow?’’

``Do you think they tell a boat’s crew? Go and ask our officer. He went up the gully and our coxswain got the jumps. He says to me: `You are light-footed, Sam, says he; `you just creep round the head of the cove and see if our boat can be seen across from the other side. Well, I couldn’t see anything. That was all right. But I thought 1 would climb a little higher amongst the rocks. . . .’’

He paused drowsily.

``That was a silly thing to do,’’ remarked Peyrol in an encouraging voice.

``I would’ve sooner expected to see an elephant inland than a craft lying in a pool that seemed no bigger than my hand. Could not understand how she got there. Couldn’t help going down to find out — -and the next thing I knew 1 was lying on my back with my head tied up, in a bunk in this kennel of a cabin here. Why couldn’t you have given me a hail and engaged me properly, yardarm to yardarm? You would have got me all the same, because all I had in the way of weapons was the clasp-knife which you have looted off me.’’

``Up on the shelf there,’’ said Peyrol, looking round. ``No, my friend, I wasn’t going to take the risk of seeing you spread your wings and fly.’’

``You need not have been afraid for your tartane. Our boat was after no tartane. We wouldn’t have taken your tartane for a gift. Why, we see them by dozens every day — -those tartanes.’’

Peyrol filled the two mugs again. ``Ah,’’ he said, ``I daresay you see many tartanes, but this one is not like the others. You a sailor — -and you couldn’t see that she was something extraordinary.’’

``Hellfire and gunpowder!’’ cried the other. ``How can you expect me to have seen anything? I just noticed that her sails were bent before your club hit me on the head.’’ He raised his hands to his head and groaned. ``Oh lord, I feel as though I had been drunk for a month.’’

Peyrol’s prisoner did look somewhat as though he had got his head broken in a drunken brawl. But to Peyrol his appearance was not repulsive. The rover preserved a tender memory of his freebooter’s life with its lawless spirit and its spacious scene of action, before the change in the state of affairs in the Indian Ocean, the astounding rumours from the outer world, made him reflect on its precarious character. It was true that he had deserted the French flag when quite a youngster; but at that time that flag was white; and now it was a flag of three colours. He had known the practice of liberty, equality and fraternity as understood in the haunts open or secret of the Brotherhood of the Coast. So the change, if one could believe what people talked about, could not be very great. The rover had also his own positive notions as to what these three words were worth. Liberty — -to hold your own in the world if you could. Equality — -yes! But no body of men ever accomplished anything without a chief. All this was worth what it was worth. He regarded fraternity somewhat differently. Of course brothers would quarrel amongst themselves; it was during a fierce quarrel that flamed up suddenly in a company of Brothers that he had received the most dangerous wound of his life. But for that Peyrol nursed no grudge against anybody. In his view the claim of the Brotherhood was a claim for help against the outside world. And here he was sitting opposite a Brother whose head he had broken on sufficient grounds. There he was across the table looking dishevelled and dazed, uncomprehending and aggrieved, and that head of his proved as hard as ages ago when the nickname of Testa Dura had been given to him by a Brother of Italian origin on some occasion or other, some butting match no doubt; just as he, Peyrol himself, was known for a time on both sides of the Mozambique Channel as Poigne-de-Fer, after an incident when in the presence of the Brothers he played at arm’s length with the windpipe of an obstreperous negro sorcerer with an enormous girth of chest. The villagers brought out food with alacrity, and the sorcerer was never the same man again. It had been a great display.

Yes, no doubt it was Testa Dura; the young neophyte of the order (where and how picked up Peyrol never heard), strange to the camp, simpleminded and much impressed by the swaggering cosmopolitan company in which he found himself. He had attached himself to Peyrol in preference to some of his own countrymen of whom there were several in that band, and used to run after him like a little dog and certainly had acted a good shipmate’s part on the occasion of that wound which had neither killed nor cowed Peyrol but merely had given him an opportunity to reflect at leisure on the conduct of his own life.

The first suspicion of that amazing fact had intruded on Peyrol while he was bandaging that head by the light of the smoky lamp. Since the fellow still lived, it was not in Peyrol to finish him off or let him lie unattended like a dog. And then this was a sailor. His being English was no obstacle to the development of Peyrol’s mixed feelings in which hatred certainly had no place. Amongst the members of the Brotherhood it was the Englishmen whom he preferred. He had also found amongst them that particular and loyal appreciation, which a Frenchman of character and ability will receive from Englishmen sooner than from any other nation. Peyrol had at times been a leader, without ever trying for it very much, for he was not ambitious. The lead used to fall to him mostly at a time of crisis of some sort; and when he had got the lead it was on the Englishmen that he used to depend most.

And so that youngster had turned into this English man-of-war’s man! In the fact itself there was nothing impossible. You found Brothers of the Coast in all sorts of ships and in all sorts of places. Peyrol had found one once in a very ancient and hopeless cripple practising the profession of a beggar on the steps of Manila cathedral; and had left him the richer by two broad gold pieces to add to his secret hoard. There was a tale of a Brother of the Coast having become a mandarin in China, and Peyrol believed it. One never knew where and in what position one would find a Brother of the Coast. The wonderful thing was that this one should have come to seek him out, to put himself in the way of his cudgel. Peyrol’s greatest concern had been all through that Sunday morning to conceal the whole adventure from Lieutenant Ral. As against a wearer of epaulettes, mutual protection was the first duty between Brothers of the Coast. The unexpectedness of that claim coming to him after twenty years invested it with an extraordinary strength. What he would do with the fellow he didn’t know. But since that morning the situation had changed. Peyrol had received the lieutenant’s confidence and had got on terms with him in a special way. He fell into profound thought.

``Sacre tte dure,’’ he muttered without rousing himself. Peyrol was annoyed a little at not having been recognized. He could not conceive how difficult it would have been for Symons to identify this portly deliberate person with a white head of hair as the object of his youthful admiration, the black-ringleted French Brother in the prime of life of whom everybody thought so much. Peyrol was roused by hearing the other declare suddenly:

``I am an Englishman, I am. I am not going to knuckle under to anybody. What are you going to do with me?’’

``I will do what I please,’’ said Peyrol, who had been asking himself exactly the same question.

``Well, then, be quick about it, whatever it is. I don’t care a damn what you do, but — -be — -quick — - about it.’’

He tried to be emphatic; but as a matter of fact the last words came out in a faltering tone. And old Peyrol was touched. He thought that if he were to let him drink the mugful standing there, it would make him dead drunk. But he took the risk. So he said only:

``Allons. Drink.’’ The other did not wait for a second invitation but could not control very well the movements of his arm extended towards the mug. Peyrol raised his on high.

``Trinquons, eh?’’ he proposed. But in his precarious condition the Englishman remained unforgiving.

``I’m damned if I do,’’ he said indignantly, but so low that Peyrol had to turn his ear to catch the words. ``You will have to explain to me first what you meant by knocking me on the head.’’

He drank, staring all the time at Peyrol in a manner which was meant to give offence but which struck Peyrol as so childlike that he burst into a laugh.

``Sacr imbcile, va! Did I not tell you it was because of the tartane? If it hadn’t been for the tartane I would have hidden from you. I would have crouched behind a bush like a — -what do you call them? — -livre.’’

The other, who was feeling the effect of the d stared with frank incredulity.

``You are of no account,’’ continued Peyrol. ``Ah! if you had been an officer I would have gone for you anywhere. Did you say your officer went up the gully?’’

Symons sighed deeply and easily. ``That’s the way he went. We had heard on board of a house thereabouts.’’

``Oh, he went to the house!’’ said Peyrol. ``Well, if he did get there he must be very sorry for himself. There is half a company of infantry billeted in the farm.’’